living in the past?

I have been told on more than one occasion that I live in the past.

At first, I was offended by these offhanded comments because I’ve always considered myself an active planner and go-getter, not some dweller of events from an earlier time. Then I realized that my definition of living in the past was not only rigid, but also filled with hostility and disdain. It should have been a clue to me that there was some truth in what they were saying, simply by my reaction. Funny how we can so easily dislike what we think we shouldn’t be, merely because of who or where the idea is coming from. Too often we let the diminutive definitions we have been taught since childhood carry the only forms of truth instead of investigating newfound meanings or understandings. In the same way we allow relationships, hobbies, faith, and even our jobs to be questioned or catechized, we should allow the same examinations to take place within ourselves.

All that to say, I believe there is a lot to be learned about ourselves from those closest to us. After somewhat reaching a point of settling in here, I began to rest and relive time I have recently spent back in the States. While reflecting on various moments and conversations I shared with some of you, I was able to find truth in what had previously made me uneasy.

I don’t think I live in the past, but I do spend an awful lot of time there. However, I use the past not as a dwelling mechanism, but as a way of tracing God’s plan and coloring in the gaps that I missed before. Almost as if I am 5 years old again, sitting at a table, painting by numbers. In most aspects of my life, I seem to be blind to the greater picture that God is trying to teach me, mainly because my own selfish motives, expectations, or circumstances cause me to focus on other irrelevant details. Not to say details are insignificant (I believe they are what help create the bigger picture), but it’s when we are zoomed in on the tiny factors that we are unable to trace how each moment fits together to create this uniformed piece of God’s majestic hand at work in our lives. I start by looking back and seeing what I was unable to see before. By understanding where I was, from the perspective I stand at now, what was foggy becomes more clear. What I thought was the issue becomes erased with the outcome that I was unwilling to recognize while living in that moment.

But it doesn’t stop there.

I take those happenings and follow them like clues to a mystery until I see where they find me in my new state of mind. The mind that is still planning, still seeking, still tenacious. Only then do those occurrences become applicable, the past useful, and another layer added to the foundation of my faith. I see God clearly in those lessons. Each one becomes another exemplar of His sovereignty, even when I am blind and faithless. It’s there that I add a little more color or connect another dot to the patient God that works through others and myself for the greater good of His Kingdom. It’s there that I learn to redefine or stretch my basic definitions. And it’s there where I am able to see how much mercy I have been given and how much grace I do not deserve.

It is when we allow our past to hinder us from learning, letting go of our shame, and finding peace in confession, that our stories becomes useless and our memory used to our disadvantage. Instead, we should allow it to be a bridge toward change, redefining what we thought we knew, and finding truth behind what others may be showing us, regardless of how defensive we desire to become. In doing so, we become less afraid to question ourselves, but even more so, strengthened to move in a new direction because of what we had been shown before.

painting one number at a time,
Kim